


Mother Hen

by charade



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen, Implied background Uta/Renji, Souta survives because I say so, The Clowns - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charade/pseuds/charade
Summary: Nico is the sort to live for beautiful people. That much is true even when the show is over.





	Mother Hen

Souta is a very pretty boy. His face is soft, almost feminine, as are his hips. Not too tall, but by no means short, and with a surprising muscle definition. Cute, for sure. Pretty. But this is not what makes him beautiful. 

What makes him beautiful is that small shiver when Nico’s hands brush his cheek, the half second of genuine shock when Nico tilts his face towards the mirror and he sees what make-up can do to him, before he pulls his masks back on, so careful and so practiced the unset powder doesn’t shift in the least. What makes him beautiful is how dead his eyes still look despite the flawless application of foundation, of cover up, of mascara and eyeliner and shadow the next time Nico sees him. What makes him beautiful is the smallest spark in all that empty black when he explains exactly how this surgery works. 

His laughter, too, is beautiful. When it's forced, when it's exasperated, when it's clear to Nico that even he doesn’t know if it's genuine or not. The way sometimes no amount of cover-up could hide the bruises under his eyes or fix the shade of his cheeks. That exhaustion that etched itself into his face. The one time Nico had caught him asleep. How he woke up shaking, and how quickly he’d forced himself to stop. All that is beautiful. 

He’s beautiful now, too, unable to stop himself from shaking. Beautiful like a wounded bird is beautiful, its little heart beating too fast in its tiny chest. 

Nico almost regretted the choice to stay behind, watching the performances Dona and Uta had to give, if it meant missing that falling star’s finale in all its glory. This little boy’s death was always going to be the most beautiful of all. As beautiful as he is, he’s a child who can see no beauty in his own life. As beautifully as he lived, there was always only one end for a poor little boy like that. Nico had told him as much. To go mad and die. And they’d almost missed it.

But they’d found him, with Itori’s eyes and ears, and his nose and expertise, and Uta’s new found desperation (and wasn’t that beautiful, too). Found him barely breathing, his little bird heart barely beating, and Nico had been right, of course, because all that’s left in those dead man’s eyes now is madness. But madness, too, is beautiful. 

Nico is a lover, not a fighter. Kagune more fond of healing than hurting, but with this poor boy it's hard to tell which is which. His insides are all mixed up, some combination of human and ghoul and monster, all fighting against themselves for survival. A perfect metaphor and they, the clowns, were never ones to miss the chance to point those out. Nico mentions, too, what else this looks like, pulling this body out, naked and shivering, covered in blood and viscera and slime. Beautiful. Birth and death, pain and madness. Nico does what can be done to keep that little heart beating and those little breaths coming.

They start and stop, start and stop, like a clogged and broken engine. Nico is hardly the mechanic type, but it isn’t as if a proper doctor is around. Kanou is dead and the Great Wheel Act is trying to worm their way through the chaos to whoever will give them the time of day. Donato had said, with his dying breath, that it would all come back, rebuild despite the dead, despite the carnage, despite the revelations. A sentiment the old man undoubtedly never told this little boy with his grand production and grander goals. Maybe it was just what age did to you, Nico thinks, now the senior most member of this little troop of actors with Donato and Roma gone. After all, wasn’t that all that was happening? Power consolidating in the same places all over again. It had always been like this, history says. Despite the death and fire and foreign armies. New names, new technology, same companies, same systems, same power.

Maybe this little boy will never wake up enough to see it. Maybe that would be better for him. Maybe in whatever dreams little Sou-chan is dreaming, things are different. More horrible, maybe, but broken, still.

But these are the sentiments of a clown, an outsider, a fool. Perhaps things are changing just enough. Nico is the oldest of them now, and a mother hen should be happy for her chicks when they find something to be happy about. Nico sits by the bedside of this little broken bird and watches Uta flit back and forth, to and from all those normal people, like he’s trying to build himself a nest - a home - little twig by little twig. Perhaps there will not be a strong wind or fire and the nest will be built. Perhaps the Raven he’s trying to impress will find it suitable. That would be beautiful too. But so would that storm, that fire. Uta will always have this circus of a roost to come home to, should he want. Not much of a shelter, but it will be here none the less.

Their other little bird is watching too, like she always has been, watching and listening to everything there is to see and hear. Nico is proud of her, too, the way she’s making it all work to her advantage. That too, is a way anything new is just like the old. If Itori is disappointed, she won’t say so. But Itori is an old friend now, so Nico knows where to look. She comes sometimes in her off hours, bottle of wine in hand. There’s no need to be fully sober for this, and Itori wants the excuse. A mother hen cares for her brood, and maybe that should mean saying no, but, it seems, there will be an endless string of tomorrows for interventions. She’ll cut back, she says, once the department stores reopen. And maybe she will. 

Maybe they will all change, or maybe they won’t. It hardly seems fair to ask more of them than the world will give of itself. Suppose the world changes its set dressing. By all means, the clowns will change their costumes and learn their new lines. Ever the fools, there are roles for them in any play. 

Or maybe the world will surprise them, still. If it does, they might surprise it as well. They are ghouls of surprise, after all.

But until then, at least for now, Nico will watch over this motley flock, these beautiful, beautifully broken creatures.

**Author's Note:**

> you can't stop me from interpreting ch. 179's text about Itori to mean whatever I want, it never says.


End file.
